Two police officers were fatally shot Sunday near a home in Honolulu that appears to have been set on fire, and two women remained missing in the aftermath, authorities said.

The fire quickly spread to other homes in the upscale Diamond Head neighborhood, destroying seven houses and damaging several others, Honolulu Fire Chief Manuel Neves said.

Tiffany Enriquez, a seven-year veteran of the Honolulu Police Department, and Kaulike Kalama, a five-year veteran, were killed, Police Chief Susan Ballard said.

"They were like my kids," Ballard said at a news conference Sunday night. "I knew each one very personally."

Ballard said that the suspect, identified as Jerry Hanel, who is in his 60s, is believed to have died in the fire but that investigators had not found his remains.

The two missing women had been in the first house, but Ballard did not know whether they lived there.